I am obsessed with history podcasts, but am forced to listen to the same 3-4 over and over again because there are so few hosts that craft a compelling narrative. There's a reason why Dan Carlin always starts his shows with a "big idea" that is abstract and acts as a metaphor to tie the episode as a whole together.

99% of history podcasts just start telling you the names of people and places and dates, and at best, will tell you what "a country did, or thought at a particular time", without ever getting into the individual psychologies of the leaders, or the sociology of the people. Because of the nature of an audio medium (no visual maps to look at, no turning back the page to to remember a name), it's so important that the host characterize the people in the story, which is so incredibly rare. I've listened to a lot of the pods recommended on Reddit (should I name them?( and many of the big ones are guilty of this. 2 minutes in and we're already all aboard the names and places and dates train.

Please for the love of god, give me a podcast that grounds its story in a big idea or characters before it starts rattling off dates and places! I can't listen to Martyrmade a 4th time!

EDIT: I just want to say thank you for the recommendations ! They seem promising that they can break me out of my relistening cycle! I didn't mean to sound mean, I just am frustrated with my own inability to follow the story once too many names are introduced.